


Fire at Night

by bees_honey



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fire, Jeff's a good guy, Season/Series 02, Shock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:32:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bees_honey/pseuds/bees_honey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fire at Annie's old apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 3:30

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted in Milady/Milord

It was 3:30 in the morning, and Jeff was warmly tucked away in his 1200 thread count slate gray Egyptian Sheets with his matching designer duvet when his phone began ringing so loudly that it seemed to scream. Jeff’s hand reached over to answer it before he was even awake. He greeted his caller with a muffled groan.

For a long time there was silence, and just before he was about to hang up he heard a small whimper.

“Hello?”

“Jeff?”

“Annie?” Jeff bolted upright, immediately awake. Annie never called late or without a good reason. He turned on the bedside lamp.

“Jeff— I – I think I need your help?”

“What’s going on” Jeff was now quickly putting on clothes not even looking if his clothes matched, well maybe a quick glance in the mirror to make sure nothing really clashed.

“My—my apartment—I’m sorry I shouldn’t have bothered you—You can’t—I’m sorry”

“Annie” He used his stern authoritative Lawyer voice, and began to look for his shoes, “What is wrong?”

“My apartment is on fire—Jeff I don’t have insurance—I don’t know what to do.”

Jeff grabbed his keys, as he passed a sleeping Chang who was still camping out on his couch. “Annie don’t worry I’m on my way”

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Annie was staring at the bright orange flames that flicked out of her apartment windows and licked the brick façade. There were three fire trucks, two police cars and four ambulances filling up the street. A man in blue kept pressing a mask to her face, she would hold it up until he when away and then she would lower it again. It seemed to be smothering her and she was having trouble breath as it was. After the third time she just waited until he turned away and then she slipped off walking down the street.

She felt horrible, her head was pounding, her eyes were watering, and the constant smell of smoke made her feel sick. She couldn’t think correctly, everything was so muddled. She couldn’t seem to take in what was happening around her, which was why she plowed straight into a tall man with black shoes.

“Annie? Are you okay?” Jeff looked down at her, she suddenly seemed very fragile to him. Like the china figurines that his Mom collected. The ones he seemed to break just by touching them. He quickly pulled her into a hug.

She looked up and smiled. Jeff was here. How amazing! How had he known to come?

“I’m okay.” And she was, she was suddenly calm, everything was going to be okay. Jeff was here he’d take care of everything. And she’d be fine, although she still couldn’t breathe right and she was suddenly cold and thirsty.

Jeff was a little concern. Annie seemed okay, she was calm enough, really creepily calm. He looked over the scene in front of him, his Lawyer brain kicking in, “Okay. I got this. Go sit in my car, put the air on and relax. I’m going to go talk to a cop, see if I can get any information on how the fire started. If it was arson or building code violations you may be able to get some kind of money from a settlement. But we need to make sure that the cops start looking now.” He handed her his car keys and motioned to where his car was and went to find the nearest cop.

Annie went off into the direction which Jeff had gestured looking for his car. She rubbed her eyes with her palm, her eyes stung really bad and it only seemed to be getting worse, so she began to blink them purposely. She pasted by several cars but none of them looked like Jeff’s. She wandered farther and farther down the blocks, her mind numbly taking in the different types of cars she passed. But none were a black 2002 Lexus with leather interior.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeff was having trouble finding a police officer who was willing to tell him what was going on. Mostly they seemed to be focused on moving people away from the site with a kind of dedication and speed that just did not seem normal, at least not in this neighborhood. Something was off about this fire. He turned to the side and saw people gearing up in full hazmat suits. He looked back up at the building, checking out each window as best he could from the police line. Looking for something that would explain what the hell was going on.

A voice bellowed out from a fog horn speaker, “If you were in the building at the time of the explosion please line up in front of an ambulance to be checked out by a medical professional.”

Explosion? Jeff’s mind reeled and he quickly strode over to a cop who was telling people to nicely ‘move along’

“Hey” Jeff called out.

“Sir, I’m going to ask you to move along”

“What happened here?”

“We are not able to comment at this time”

“I’m not looking for any kind of official statement. I just want to know what happened.”

“Sir, I am not at liberty to say what may have happened here tonight. If you could kindly move along.”

“Fine!” Jeff hissed angrily, but he quickly changed his tone when he saw the look of annoyance on the cop’s face, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.” Jeff quickly began to formulate a story in his head which would pull enough heart strings to get any information. “It’s just that my fiancé was in there and I just got here and I am trying to figure out what happened.” Jeff looked up at the cop with his most genuine fake heartbroken face he could muster. But the cops face was blank.

“You’re gonna to have to move along.”

Crap- Crap- Crap. That moved nearly always worked! Jeff quickly began to go through his mind trying to generate a signature Winger speech that would give him what he wanted but ever since that stupid group got their claws into him he was finding it harder and harder to create BS on the spot. The Cop began to turn around.

“Wait!” Jeff held out both his hands. “Please, just- I’m worried. I won’t hold you to anything you say, I just want to know what you think. I’m worried” he emphasized the last word.

The cop faced the now dying flames of the building so that no one would know he was even talking to Jeff and cleared his throat, “Probably a Meth explosion, skip the ambulances and get your girl to the hospital . Just to be safe.” The cop then walked away silently.

Jeff took off running in the opposite direction. He needed to get Annie to a hospital.  
\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Annie was watching the light on the pavement in front of her flicker. It was the beautiful pale light of the morning sun, the kind that looks pink and rosy but turns everything around you a shade of blue. She smiled and held out her hand and marveled how at one moment it seemed like the pale hand of a corpse and the next alive. Dead. Alive. Dead. Alive. It was a fun little trick. But then again was it? She nearly jumped out of her skin when a train whistle wailed from a few feet away. She was by a train track, and a huge cargo train was speedily passing by her. How long had she been here?

And just like that whatever mental spell had ensnared her broke. Where was she? Why were her legs so tired, and her throat so sore? Why wasn’t she home?

She had a nagging feeling that she was supposed to be looking for something but she had no idea what.

“Okay,” She thought, “I am alone. I don’t know where I am. I need to take inventory.” She quickly began to look around her. “Okay, so again I am alone. In a place I do not recognize. I have no money. I have no cell phone. I am in my sheep pajama pants and a tank top.” A sense of total panic was growing in her, “I am wearing my rabbit slippers. I feel horrible, like I was in some kind of explosion. My clothes are a mess. I am covered in soot.” Soot. “Oh God!” She said aloud, “The fire!”


	2. Not Panicking

Part two

Jeff was not panicking. He was not panicking. He was not. He jogged down yet another street in the giant mass that was downtown. He held his breath as he looked down what had to be the 100th alleyway hoping to see Annie.

Nothing.

“Damn it!” He kicked a nearby garbage can in frustration and then baulked as he saw a family of rats scurry out of it. He was way out of his element. He reached for his phone and began to dial Britta’s number. It was 5:30 in the morning, maybe she’d pick up this time.

She didn’t.

“Doesn’t anyone pick up their phone?” He spotted a nearby bench at a deserted bus station and sat down. He began to go through his contact list looking for someone who could help. Shirley- no she had kids and couldn’t leave them, Chang- didn’t pick up the first 20 times which sucked because Jeff could mentally see his spare car keys in the drawer near the front door.

Why did he give Annie the keys? Why hadn’t he acted like a gentleman – no a Human Being and escorted the –now obviously in shock Annie the two feet to his car. Two feet! It had been right there! How could she have missed it? How could he have missed it? She had obviously in shock, her usual shiny Disney eyes had been dull, her face pale, and her voice weak. He stopped himself from continuing on in this diatribe, he needed to focus. Abed didn’t have a car, neither did Troy who was staying at Abed’s dorm for another one of their famous sleepovers. The rest of the people were on the list were apathetic lawyers or girls who existed only by crude nicknames. And then- then there was Pierce.

Jeff sighed and looked at the time, 5:45 am, he was on a street in the bad area of downtown, his car was six blocks away and unusable, Annie was missing and Jeff felt useless. He looked up at the sky, the sun was coming up over the tenement houses showing every bit of dirt and grime on the street.

How could Annie live in place like this? In the few hours he had been looking for her he had seen sleazy hookers, pimps, drug dealers, screaming families and crying children. He had to find her. She was out there in her sheep pjs and bunny slippers. He had hoped she would have had her cell phone but he found it on the pavement way past where his car had been parked. He was getting desperate to find some other clue to where she had gone or even what direction. He was just about to call Britta again when a white flash of light hit him directly in the eyes. He shielded his eyes and looked at the shining object in the street. He breathed out just a little, got up, walked over and picked up his car keys.

Annie walked through the street, tired and lost. She wandered trying to find a place that was open while simultaneously having an existential crisis. Which was hard because her mind was – fuzzy. She was supposed to be alone; she was supposed to be able to operate alone. That is what responsible adults do. Adults rent apartments they can afford even if it smells weird, and they sell marital aids in store downstairs. She had tried so had to be responsible but insurance was just too much money and all she had were clothes, notebooks, and school books. So what if she wasn’t protected, and what was the likelihood that she would lose everything. Except it had happened. Now she had nothing. No money saved, no clothes and… and “OH MY GOD!” she gasped her books! Her notes, her meticulous notes!

Annie’s eyes welled. She was alone with nothing. She did not know where she was except that it may very well be literally on the wrong side of the tracks.

She looked down the street, and saw a tall man in a blue suit complete with a fedora standing outside of a bar front. She wiped face and smoothed her hair before she ran forward.

“Excuse me Sir?” her voice was a raspy whisper.

“I don’t have any spare change.”

“I don’t need any money could I use your phone?” The last word was barely audible. The man looked her up and down and handed her a phone from his back pocket.

“Thanks” she attempted to speak but ended up only being able to mouth the words. She went to type in a number but then realized the only phone number she had memorized was her Mom’s. She couldn’t call that. Not now. Not when she was covered in soot, having lost everything, and enrolled in a Community College. And if she did call- Oh God all the nagging, all the screaming, all the anger, all the blame. She handed the man back his phone. “Water?” she asked. The Man in the Blue Suit smiled sideways and gestured to the door of a gloomy bar.

It was only when she was inside that it struck Annie as odd that a bar was open in the morning.

Jeff was in his car wheeling around the city driving up and down the streets. No sign of Annie anywhere. He was becoming increasingly panicked. He called everyone now, even if they had two kids, even if they had no car and even if they hadn’t picked up his first 38 calls. He was desperate- He had called Pierce.

Pierce had unsurprisingly been of little help. At first he just stumbled over random syllables, then he began ranting about how he should have gotten her out of that death trap and lastly he had begun crying.

There had been a part of Jeff that had thought he was being unreasonable and overprotective. That Annie was fine and an adult and that she would have gotten into an ambulance instead of his car. But when he had hung up on Pierce mid-wail that part disappeared and a pure, un-distilled panic had overcome him. He opened his phone and called Britta for the 39th time.


	3. Chapter 3

Annie stared at the plate in front of her; it was filled with bar peanuts. There was a glass of water next to it filled with tons of ice- it was her third glass. Her throat still seemed to burn and her voice was weak but she was able to talk again. And she had a lot. She was a gushing volcano of talk.

The Man in the Blue Suit listened silently nodding and shaking his head when appropriate. He interrupted her only once, “So this guy Jeff is not into you but sabotages all your relationship? That’s messed up.” She had smiled at that and continued on. She prattled on and told him everything, about the drugs in high school, the fire, Jeff, girls in high school, the study group, Jeff again. Then she had run out of things to say and began looking at her plate moving the food around in the new silence that had fallen.

The Man in the Blue Suit shifted in his seat, unbuttoned his sport jacket and leaned back in his chair. He began talking in a slow, warm voice, “You have been through a lot. Horrible stuff that most people cannot comprehend yet alone live through.” He picked up his hat from the table and stood up, “You lived through it all with a sense of honor, discipline, and morality.” He walked around the table to where she sat and bent over looking her right in the eyes, “You did what you knew was right, what you had always been told was right and it has left you destitute. What you held onto so closely, what you wanted so badly: a good education – you’re stuck in GCC, a good boyfriend- you have a man who can’t even say he likes you but destroys all you chances at love, a good home- you are homeless.” Annie looked down, she hadn’t heard her life spoken out loud in such a succinct and grim manner.

He took both of her hands in his own and smiled before continuing on, “You’re not happy in this world. And why? Because this is not a world for the honorable or the moral. This is a world for survivors, and with my help you can survive. You can thrive.” The soft light of the morning began to stream in to the bar showing every crack in the plaster, every chip in the paint and the red blotches in the eyes of the man in the Blue Suit. “For a few hours a week you can have you enough money to buy a new wardrobe, get a new apartment, brand new life, brand new experiences. You could be happy.”

Annie looked at him in disbelief, her mind was in overdrive and she was achy, homeless, alone, and tired. She had no money, no insurance, no job, no notes, no books, no family, and no boyfriend. She stood up and looked at the man in Blue Suit who seemed more and more like a giant blue beetle. “I am happy.” She said. “Thank you for your help and offer, which I am sure you meant in the best way possible- for a pimp. A very nice pimp if Lifetime movies are anything to go by. But I have friends and this-” She gestured to her dirty clothes and her disheveled appearance, “This sucks, but I am happy. Right this second sucks, but in the next couple of seconds or hundreds of second or thousands of seconds I am going to find my friends. I’m going to be around people who love me, care about me, who will help me and who will remind me why I can be this – this screwed and still be happy.” And with a quick smile Annie stood up and walked out of the bar.

Jeff was sitting in his car which was parked at the side of the road. He was tired, covered in dry sweat and general filth from the street. He couldn’t move because well he had no idea where to move to. 

This was exactly why he could never date anyone, especially Annie. She was just too fragile and he- He could take care of himself, he could, and he could take care of the study group, barely. But a girlfriend? The kind of girlfriend that would depend on him. Expect things from him. Simple things like picking up milk on his way home, not being sarcastic to her mother or just lead her to the GODDAMN CAR so she wouldn’t take off in the night in a HORRIBLE neighborhood and die because some drug dealer or rapist… Jeff slammed his head into the steering wheel. He couldn’t take care of Annie he couldn’t do anything for her.

Slater had been easy mostly except when she wanted Chubby Hubby. Annie would be a responsibility, hard work and effort. Which was fine- he could do that- the effort, the work but if he had learned anything from Pottery Class it was that it didn’t matter. You are good at a few things but bad at a lot more. He had a half mutilated coin tray at home as a constant reminder. Jeff put his head in his hands and breathed out.

But then he also had a decent bowl that he could actually eat cereal from; it didn’t leak or anything. He’d worked really hard on it- at home with a clump of clay he’d stolen.

There was a quick tap at the window.

Jeff looked up and gasped almost choking on his tongue. It was Annie looking miraculously regal and totally disarrayed. She smiled, waved and mouthed to be let in. Dumbfounded Jeff opened the door. She slid in and bounced a little in the seat before leaning over and hugging him tightly.

“Thank God you’re here Jeff,” Annie said as she was pulling away, “It means absolutely everything.”

“Me losing you in the middle of the night means everything to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Just yeah”

“I had a long night. You did everything right. I was just weird and I don’t know. I’m tired”

“I should have walked you to the door.”

“Where am I going to stay?”

“You were obviously distressed and needed help and I screwed up.”

“I don’t want to stay with Britta. She’s the worst.”

“We should get you to the hospital. The police officer told me to get you to the hospital.”

“Shirley has her kids, and Andre, and is pregnant.”

Jeff looked at the GPS on his phone, “There’s one up ahead, about a mile from here”

“Abed’s dorm is boy’s only.”

“There could be some kind of nerve damage, lung damage, PTSD, you may have breathed in chemicals. I am suing the HELL out of that meth-head cooker asshole and you sleazy landlord.”

“Oh God Jeff!”

“Don’t worry we’re almost to the hospital”

“No, Jeff I don’t want to live with Pierce.”

“Crap- I need to call Pierce. He’s probably still crying.”

“I am going to have to live in some shelter that has fleas and smells like a highschool locker room.”

“Screw Pierce having a human emotion won’t kill him.”

“I’ll have to drop out and start tutoring full time. Maybe I could be like a Governess!”

“Annie relax you’re living with me until I get you a decent settlement, I’ll trick Pierce into insisting that Chang live with him.”

“How?”

“Annie, I’m Jeff Winger.”

“Thanks. Jeff I just want to tell you that the pimp back there couldn’t have been more wrong. You’re not messed up you’re you and you’re awesome.”

“Thanks- wait what?”

“But you can’t chase off every guy who looks at me unless-“

“Annie you’re obviously in shock still or something. But don’t worry we’re at the hospital now. We’re both tired so just. Before you say anything else just know that I think you’re a cereal bowl” Jeff yawned as he pulled into a parking space near the ER entrance. He got out quickly and ran/stumbled to Annie’s door letting her out.

“Jeff – what do you mean I’m a cereal bowl?”

Jeff sighed, “I’m too tired to go through the metaphor again. I can’t be the total responsible one but I can work at it and we can retain milk. Wait that sounds bad. We need to get you inside everything will be okay. We just need to get you inside.” He smiled his Jeff Winger smile or at least he tried too. For the first time all day Annie got a good look at him, he had a thick five o’clock shadow, his hair was matted, his eyelids drooped onto the dark circles under his eyes, and perhaps most telling he was wearing navy socks with black shoes and brown pants.

“Okay.” Annie moved close to him linking to his side. Both of them teetered towards the door supporting each other as they went inside.

Britta woke up at 10:30 am, stretched and rolled over to check her phone. There were 41 messages. All but one was from Jeff’s phone. She smiled expecting some of the best drunk dials ever in the history of man but instead found what had to be the most terrifying descent into madness ever recorded in the history of man. The second to last phone call was from a weeping Pierce which just said “It should have been you.” The last phone call was from Annie and she had to listen to it several times to figure out what the hell was going on:

“Britta everything’s okay. Jeff actually was worst off then me but they have us both on oxygen and IV drips. There seems to be no lasting lung damage. Oh my God Jeff! Look it’s the pimp from earlier!”

“I could take him” Jeff sounded drunk.

“You both need to calm down,” a third voice demanded, “That’s your doctor.”

“He’s all in blue” Annie reasoned. “Anyway Britta all is good. But they took our cloths and gave us scrubs because of all of the chemicals. But the drug maker of the meth stuff- he was loaded. No my slumlord was loaded everything’s going to be okay we are filing a joint suit. Please come and give us cloths. Oh and if you see a cop be sure to tell him that we have a date set for the wedding and we would be honored if he came. But also make sure that he doesn’t seem too interested in coming because then there actually would have to be a wedding… Have you ever been on this pink IV bag before it has something in it that has so many syllables.”

“Give me that phone,” came the third voice again. Then the message ended.

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Thanks for reading!


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